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Dan Grossi/Associated Press

Muhammad Ali: From the segregated south to world stardom

The world will bid farewell to The Greatest today.

TO UNDERSTAND WHAT made boxing legend Muhammad Ali tick, it helps to look at the history of his hometown Louisville and the roiling social turmoil of his childhood in the segregated US south.

Ali, who was born in 1942, came of age in the 1950s.

Dwight Eisenhower was the president. And young Cassius Clay lived at 3302 Grand Avenue in the Kentucky city.

It was a middle class part of town, with lawyers and doctors living among the regular working folks. It was also a mainly black neighbourhood.

Family life

The Clay house was a modest one. The family was quite proud of a fish pond they had in the backyard.

The future three-time heavyweight champion of the world shared a bedroom with his younger brother, Rudolph Valentino Clay. Their parents slept in the only other bedroom in the house.

Ali’s father, a sign painter, was known for his artistic abilities. His mother was loving and showed it, neighbours say.

Cassius and Rudy Clay were raised in the Baptist faith. Only later would they be known as Muhammad and Rahman Ali.

The brothers were best friends, loved eating ice cream, and were noticed in their all-black school for being bigger than the other kids.

Racial segregation was a fact of life for the pair, but at their young age, they learned to adapt.

“Black people were not equal to white people in those days,” Rahman Ali, now 72, told AFP. “We mixed with our own kind. That’s how things were at that time.”

In the middle of the 20th century, the economy in Louisville — the largest city in the southern US state of Kentucky, the home of bourbon — was bouncing back from the difficulties sparked by Prohibition.

‘She shouldn’t sit here’ 

The place to see and be seen in Louisville was Fourth Street, the liveliest in town, and where the city’s high society went to window shop.

Bars and restaurants on the street were strictly whites only. Black people often crossed the street to the other side to avoid being called “negro” — or worse.

“In some of the stores you couldn’t try on clothes, you couldn’t sit at the lunch counters and eat,” recalled Joanna Smith, one of Ali’s high school classmates.

“If you went to a shop and paid your money, you didn’t try the clothes, you just hoped that they fit you.”

In Louisville, as in many other US cities at the time, black people had to sit in the back of buses and train cars, and drink at separate water fountains labelled “Coloured.”

Smith, a school principal who is now retired, relayed the story of one particularly humiliating day when she was six or seven years old, and was walking up to Fourth Street with her older sister.

“I can remember going to McCrory’s, that was a five-and-dime store. I was so tired, so my sister picked me up and sat me on a stool and somebody said: ‘She shouldn’t sit here.’”

Stolen bike

McCrory’s has since closed its doors. So has Stewart’s Dry Goods, once the city’s largest department store. In the 1950s, its elegant Orchid Tea Room was quite popular. White women had lunch there, in hats and gloves.

Farther south on the street was the Brown Hotel, where former British prime minister David Lloyd George was the first to sign the guest register in 1923. Generations of whites danced under its crystal chandeliers.

In 1928, the Loew’s Theater opened on Fourth Street, with a magnificent multicoloured rococo facade. It, too, was only for whites.

The list goes on. Fontaine Ferry Park, with its skating rink and wooden roller coasters? No black people allowed. The Walgreens drugstore? Same thing.

What must the young Cassius — entering his teens — have been thinking?

We know at least one of his dreams at the time — to own a red Schwinn bicycle.

PA / EMPICS PA / EMPICS / EMPICS

He eventually got one, but it was stolen soon thereafter. Cassius, disgusted, went to see police. He spoke to officer Joe Martin, promising that he would “whup” the thief.

Martin, who was the head of boxing for the city’s recreation department, urged Cassius to come learn to box at the Columbia Gym.

And such was the start of a storied career.

Cassius started getting up at 5 am to run in Chickasaw Park, the only public park open to black people. He tested his sprinting skills against city buses. Nothing would stop him from being “The Greatest.”

But he was marked by a childhood lived in the shadow of whites.

“Everything good and with authority is white,” Ali once said.

“I want a dip of chocolate and a dip of vanilla, and I bet you a thousand to one, that every time, they put the chocolate on the bottom and the vanilla on the top.”

Sixty-two years after the theft of that red Schwinn, America’s first black president is in the White House. Louisville made peace with its segregationist past.

MITSUNORI CHIGITA MITSUNORI CHIGITA

And black people and white people will come together today to bid farewell to Ali, The Champ for all.

- © AFP 2016.

Read: Ali scripted funeral plans in exacting detail in ‘The Book’>

Read: The world invited to say goodbye to the late, great Muhammad Ali at public funeral>

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    Mute DeeJay
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    Jan 27th 2017, 8:14 AM

    Plastics are numbered 1-7. It would be more definitive if recycling companies listed the plastic numbers they except. This is never listed on their websites

    118
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    Mute Thomas Maher
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    Jan 27th 2017, 9:42 AM

    Don’t know what so hard to understand about filling the green bin. It’s pretty easy. PAPER, PLASTIC, METAL. NO NAPPIES, BATTERIES, OR GARDEN WASTE. How difficult is that to understand.

    47
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    Mute dearg doom
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    Jan 27th 2017, 9:51 AM

    @Thomas Maher: It’s not all plastics. How difficult is it to read the whole article?

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    Mute Tony Skillington
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    Jan 27th 2017, 10:06 AM

    Dirty nappies and politicians .both changed regularly and for the same reason.

    40
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    Mute Niall O'Reilly
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    Jan 27th 2017, 8:40 AM

    Curious about two questions: So I fill my green bin according to the list, but my neighbour throws a couple of batteries into his green bin. Both bins are then tossed into the refuse collection truck. Does this mean that everything else inside the refuse collection truck is contaminated? Also if the used yoghurt container is not washed prior to disposal is it also treated as contaminated?

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    Mute Avina Laaf
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    Jan 27th 2017, 7:03 AM

    Ok – I confess my ignorance: What about thin plastic bags or Pringles tubes?

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    Mute Thomas Maher
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    Jan 27th 2017, 9:47 AM

    Now think really hard , and ask yourself what are they made from?. If you arrive at the answer paper, plastic or metal. They can go in the…..

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    Mute Avina Laaf
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    Jan 27th 2017, 10:33 AM

    @Thomas Maher:
    Except that’s not really true though – only certain types of plastics can be recycled. It appears you’re even more ignorant than me.

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    Mute Stephen Blott
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    Jan 27th 2017, 11:11 AM

    @Avina Laaf: Pringles tube is, I think, *not* recyclable. That’s what Google says.

    (Not an expert, but I think it’s because of the bonded metal and paper layers.)

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    Mute Avina Laaf
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    Jan 27th 2017, 11:31 AM

    Thanks Stephen :)

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    Mute Avina Laaf
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    Jan 27th 2017, 11:34 AM

    Given that worldwide they probably churn out billions of them annually, Pringles should really work on making a tube that’s recyclable.

    47
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    Mute Tony Le Blanc
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    Jan 27th 2017, 2:24 PM

    @Avina Laaf: Now your talking. Bring back milk in glass bottles and the option to buy things which are not sealed in enough packaging to survive a small nuclear blast. Bananas and oranges wrapped in plastic for example. Last time I checked nature had already wrapped these up.

    36
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    Mute Watchful Axe
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    Jan 27th 2017, 4:59 PM

    If in doubt about something, throw it in the ordinary waste bin. I looked on the McKane oven chips bag for recycle symbol, it doesn’t have one, so I throw it in the black bag. Even though most of the other freezer stuff have the recycle symbol.

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    Mute Mrs Doyle
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    Jan 27th 2017, 8:19 AM

    They should print this list on the side of the bins. Or send out stickers to existing customers to stick on the bin. That might help

    54
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    Mute Michael Lynch
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    Jan 27th 2017, 8:40 AM

    How the f**k do I wash my old newspapers?

    53
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    Mute Gerry McCarthy
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    Jan 27th 2017, 9:22 AM

    Last week I observed my binman pick up my food waste bin and empty it into my ordinary rubbish bin before then putting it in the truck. Why do we bother separating our rubbish at all if the binman can’t even be bothered!

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    Mute Michael McGuinness
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    Jan 27th 2017, 9:12 AM

    Recycling, most people do their best. But lack of understanding what can and can’t be recycled. I know it causes confusion in our house hold. We do had debates on which is and isn’t. Better marketing of tiems you can Recycle.

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    Mute FlopFlipU
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    Jan 27th 2017, 8:47 AM

    Just rub them with a baby wipe

    21
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    Mute The Hype
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    Jan 27th 2017, 7:05 AM

    Oh my happy nappy, up on the wheely bin, Shall you join your fallen brothers, when gravity kicks in? Or perhaps you’ll be like blanky and lay under refuse sack, Nappy and blanky in worlds unknown destined to never come back, I miss thee happy Nappy and the words of which you’d speak, O Nappy, my Nappy where are you, of you I am in seek.

    18
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    Mute The Girl
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    Jan 27th 2017, 8:53 AM

    Wow! Someone is happy chappy this morning. Got your pipe emptied last night yeah!?

    12
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    Mute Melissa O'Callaghan
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    Jan 27th 2017, 7:08 AM

    I can sort of understand the nappies in the green bin. Not that I condone it but the weight of nappies is something else. If you are being charged by weight on your grey bin and the reasoning is to reduce consumption then it is unfair, as you really have no choice. I know you could say use non disposal one but the up front cost is huge and there isn’t a culture of using them. You could invest and realise their are a nightmare to use thus wasting money at a time you have less. Maybe look at changing that rather than complaining about contaminating green bins. Sometimes you have to ask why are so many people doing it.

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    Mute Paddy Byrne
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    Jan 27th 2017, 7:43 AM

    @Melissa . Sometimes i have to ask why are so many people like you so idiotic with some of the stuff you come out with. There is no reason to be throwing used nappys into a recycling bin. People who do this are not doing it because they are unaware that it is not recyclable. They are just 100% ignorant.

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    Mute Michael Lynch
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    Jan 27th 2017, 8:43 AM

    And that would be a completely rhetorical question.

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    Mute John Staunton
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    Jan 27th 2017, 10:17 AM

    @Melissa O’Callaghan: I’m trying to figure out why your statement was so unpopular. I used to live in Galway city and I was charged for weight on the black bin only….and it was because of nappies and ashes from the fire that I had to pay more for my bins. I did the right thing but it cost me an extra 100 a year so I’m not surprised what others do.

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    Mute Melissa O'Callaghan
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    Jan 27th 2017, 11:02 AM

    Steady Paddy, I had three children in nappies and 2 at the same time and NEVER put nappies in the green bin but if I was strapped for cash then I could understand why people would, (empathy) as nappies fill your bin up in no time and weigh a ton. Families are being penalised. Maybe make environmental nappies cheaper.

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    Mute Colm Ó Liatháin
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    Jan 27th 2017, 9:37 AM

    So thats why panda didn’t pick the bin up. I didn’t wash the newspaper’s.

    13
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    Mute Ella Gleeson
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    Jan 27th 2017, 10:53 AM

    Anyone with babies, check out the Cloth Nappy Library. There are actually quite a few people using cloth and it isn’t like it used to be when yer ma was hand rinsing terries. The Cloth Nappy Library even have new born and long term loan pack available at a low cost so that you can try them out before you commit to buying. http://www.clothnappylibrary.ie/

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    Mute Melissa O'Callaghan
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    Jan 27th 2017, 11:42 AM

    I looked into it, 6 years ago. If they are viable why are the mid wives on the pre baby talks promoting environmental options. It’s just the same as breast feeding, it’s culturally declining (paddy, before you react I fed all my kids!) but people need help, reassuring that’s it’s not more work / difficult. Another example of cutbacks in one area having impacts elsewhere and only when you ask why is this behaviour happening that you can change the outcome and not just blame. One the subject of plastics and films. Why are the packagers allowed to use the unrecoverable plastic? Not why are people recycling badly.

    13
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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Jan 27th 2017, 2:14 PM

    You know, I was considering that babies grow out of nappies. But are there not adult ones for incontinence too? Maybe some older people get confused.

    1
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    Mute Reuben Gray
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    Jan 27th 2017, 11:03 AM

    How is it that in this entire article, it wasn’t mentioned that almost all packaging that’s recyclable has an internationally recognisable recycling symbol on it? Stranger still, one of the main symbols is shown in an image on the article with no explanation of what it is.

    The repak website has the examples on their “For Consumer” section.

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    Mute Sandra Ni Longaigh
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    Jan 27th 2017, 10:00 AM

    Gráinne, the sentences leading up to the list imply that this is a list of things that should NOT go in the green bin. It’s obvious by the nature of the items themselves that they can but can you clarify it in the article please?

    3
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    Mute John Mulligan
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    Feb 23rd 2017, 11:09 PM

    What about dirty books?

    1
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    Mute RJ.Fallon
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    Jan 27th 2017, 11:11 AM

    what about washing powder boxes ?? the symbol is there but someone said they should not be put into the green bin.

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    Mute Marian Cleary
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    Jan 27th 2017, 5:00 PM

    Any tips on how to get the bins washed?

    1
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